Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Doktor Pathetic

C) ..like ripping my shirt off and saying WUTNAO while spamming /sit on their corpse

If you chose A or B, well, keep reading this post.

If you chose A or B but WHATISTHIS IDONTEVEN know what those words mean, don't worry. I don't know English either.

And now that my cousin Ecwhcxejb (who tutored me in English growing up) is no longer in the country, you'll have to show some forbearance with me.

If you chose C, well you're looking for a different blogger, one that prolly starts with the letter J and ends with ongalicious.

My shirts are too expensive to just go and rip off everytime I pop a cooldown. This shit ain't Hanes, this ain't Woot of the Loom. This is Cashmere, Irish Linen, Merino.

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Sympathy

I am not a sympathetic person. Sometimes sympathy creeps in on me but I detect it on my minimap and stop that shit in its tracks.

Sympathy is a blurred thing, because people usually associate it and/or interchange it with pity.

It's sort of how GG (good game) used to be used as a positive phrase at one point:

"GG chap, that was a very invigorating bout of competition---we must do this again sometime comrade."

Now GG is blatant trashtalk, so even if you try and say GG and really mean it, it's going to be understood as:

"GG muthafucka, I pwn joo 4 free---sukkkkkk on deeeeeeez brah."

Sympathy has the same problem, everyone just lumps it with pity. I have no pity.

I have no pity when I kill someone, take rating pts from them, farm and camp them for Honor.

The reason I have no pity is because pity is useless. There is no good that comes out of pity. Any positive "OH IM WITH YOU, I KNOW HOW U FEEL" talk is doing a disservice to everyone involved, no matter how "nice" it feels.

If someone got fucked over really bad in some way and is having a rough time, and you feel sympathetic, all you are doing is accepting a pity party invite. Come on in, free food, free drink! The covercharge though is priced at NOTFUCKINGSOLVINGANYTHING.

The openbar doesn't have a single premium brand, it's all bottom shelf stuff like Johnnie Stroller Black, Grey Swan vodka and Jill (swill) Daniels. This party sucks.

It's like a Doctor. When I go to my Doctor, I don't want sympathy. I want my Doctor to feel no pity. The MD on his license plate should stand for Mean Dick and on his door its spelled Doktor with a K because he's that hardcore.

I don't want "there there my child, sunshines and lollipop rainbow power, let's cry together"---I want him to figure out what's wrong with me and come up with a plan that'll work.

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Empathy

Empathy on the otherhand, I have doublebinded to my spacebar. I jump alot in PVP so I always have empathy.

Empathy cuts pity off. Empathy is sort of like sympathy sans the touchyfeely nonsense. Empathy takes the situation and condition that the other person is in---it takes that knowledge and understands it, analyzes it.

So even while you get a picture of what the other person is going through, you don't join in any sympathetic qq. You use that picture instead to get right at the root of the problem.

When I ROFLstomp someone in PVP because they either suck, keyboardturn, their gear is shit, their skateboard broke and dog died on the same day, whatever---I understand. I understand, I know. I've been there myself. I've had shit gear. I've clicked spells. I've been bottom of the foodchain. I've been through that, I KNOW.

Even if I actually haven't had my skateboard break and dog RIP, I do know frustration, anger, sorrow, disappointment, alienation. I know.

I don't feel sympathy and pity---that's doing them no good. I can only show them my best and hope they learn from it. I don't go extra easy, I go extra hard in hopes they start picking up the things they need to pickup so they don't get steamrolled again. In hopes they see what's required of them to get through a difficult time.

Back to my Doktor, I do want empathy. I want him to understand and know about my situation and condition. If he does that while cutting off pity, he can get to cutting at me and what's wrong, literally and/or metaphorically.

Surgery? Let's go. Treatment? Bring it. Empathize with me, show me that you're on my side and you have a clue, but also show me you're not going to holdback cause of "nicey feelings" either and make this situation worse---let's get shit done.

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In closing, there is a very fine line between sympathetic and empathetic---and the line is somewhere around pathetic. Don't be pathetic, don't coddle the pathetic. No one wins.

9 comments:

Hey Megan, i could say that im new to this Blog but i have been reading it for a year now but never got a chance to make a comment as i just started a blog today,i TOTALLY agree with you on that sympathy/empathy arguement.Abraham Maslow once said that people need Empathy to be able to self-actualize - I believe Maslow was not laid enough in his life : )

"Identifying oneself completely with an object or person, sometimes even to the point of responding physically, as when, watching a baseball player swing at a pitch, one feels one's own muscles flex."

I love this definition; it highlights the fact that empathy isn't merely an assimilation of another's situation with one's own, but a motivator that primes the body to react in accordance with that situation.

As you have said, it is the doctor (or Doktor, rather) that empathizes and understands that gets shit done.